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The main gameplay involves Torneko exploring mazelike dungeons in search of items. Each dungeon is full of monsters from the Dragon Quest games that Torneko can fight. The monsters can only make one move for each of Torneko's moves.[3] It is part of the roguelike genre of dungeon crawlers.

The musical score for Torneko: The Last Hope was composed by Dragon Quest series composer, Koichi Sugiyama. The original game soundtrack from the PlayStation version was released by SPE Visual Works on January 21, 2000, in Japan on a single 21-track disc.[4]

Torneko: The Last Hope was a financial and critical success in Japan. The PlayStation version of the game sold over 578,000 copies in Japan the year of its release.[13] The Game Boy Advance version of the game had sold over 181,000 units in Japan by 2007.[14]Famitsu gave the game a score of 37 out of 40 for the PS version,[7] and all four nines for a total of 36 out of 40 for the GBA version.[6][15][16] Additionally, the game was voted by the publication as number 31 in its top 100 PlayStation games of all time.[17]

The PlayStation version of Torneko: The Last Hope did not sell well in North America[18] and received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[12] RPGFan called the game "frustratingly difficult," but said that its "addictive gameplay elements and top-notch soundtrack" make it a marvelous game.[19]GameSpot said that a lot of role-playing game players would be turned off by its lack of story and randomly generated dungeons, but those who are looking for some lighter fare of role-playing game may like it.[3] Other critics scored the game much lower, however. Game Informer called it "an outdated, ugly piece of crap whose silly antics will charm no one. There are so many better RPGs out there."[8]